


Everything I Wanted

by SheWalksInBeauty26



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Big Dumb Ben Solo, Childhood Friends, Enemies to Lovers lite, Engineer Ben Solo, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Leia is a matchmaker, Minor Leia Organa/Han Solo, Non profit Rey, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sassy Rey (Star Wars), Sickening Sweetness but they have to work for it, Social Worker Rey, Teacher Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:34:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23829949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheWalksInBeauty26/pseuds/SheWalksInBeauty26
Summary: A journey of how two people were each others' entire world, then moved to another universe. Fortunately, earthquakes happen.Or: Ben Loves Rey Loves Ben Loves Rey Loves Ben Hates Ben
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15
Collections: The Perfect Date - Pink Ladies Spring Exchange





	Everything I Wanted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shestoolazytologin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shestoolazytologin/gifts).



> Thank you to everyone that helped me with this delving into the mattress store-- fluffy edition.
> 
> For Evi, who I hope enjoys this. 
> 
> Note: I tried to make the flashbacks as clear as possible, but please let me know if you're confused. (There is a five year age gap.)

**2005**

Rey’s feet crunched on the frozen ground.

Her boots slid as she darted away from the volley of snow aimed at her back, shrieking with delight.

“Watch out, brat! You can’t out-run me forever!”

At the sound of Ben’s voice, she turned, cheeks glowing, and beamed in his direction.

“Yes, I can, you big oaf!”

At nine, she relished every advantage in the endless competition against her neighbor, fourteen-year-old Ben.

But he wasn’t just her neighbor, he was her best friend. She felt her brilliant smile increase to think back to that time, five years ago, when the Solos had stumbled across a nearly frozen, tiny girl wrapped in a leather jacket and not much else.

They’d brought her in, treated her as family until Maz, the nice old lady down the street, had come along and offered to take her in. Maz had said she’d never been able to have kids of her own, and at her old age, she was ready for anything.

_Maz… wrinkled face… happy… smiling… fall… pain_

******

_**Present day, 15 years later** _

Rey burst awake, panting with the effort of gasping for air. She was having the dreams again.

She would have to tell Dr. Holdo when she went back to Jerria.

Groaning, she rolled over into her pillow and pressed her face against the cotton, willing herself to return to the bliss of unconsciousness. Of sweet memories.

Then she remembered why her chest still felt tight.

She rolled to her back and flattened to gaze up at the cracking white ceiling of the crappy motel room in the middle of nowhere.

She was bone-tired from hours of driving, only halfway to the place she called home. To Maz.

Her heart clenched and she screwed her eyes closed, willing herself not to cry again.

She had cried when Maz called from the doctor’s office.

She needed to be strong.

If not for herself than for Maz.

******

_**12 years ago.** _

Rey shoved the screen door closed with a rough jab of her hip, flip flops smacking on the pavement leading out to the Solo’s pool.

After laying in the sun for hours, “developing her freckles” as Maz put it, she’d retreated to the air-conditioned house to gulp down some lemonade.

Now her sights were set on the appealing blue of the Olympic pool, heat beating down over her neck as the cicadas buzzed a deafening drone.

After finishing her glass, she set it down and toed off her neon flip flops, pausing to admire her hot pink pedicure- Aunt Leia’s birthday present.

She jumped into the water as gracelessly as a new lamb, and when she emerged, facing the tree line, whipped around to hear a series of loud, slow claps.

“Well well if it isn’t Miss Rey Jackson, Olympic contender for 2089!” Ben called with a grin.

Rey scowled back, seething.

“Sorry not everyone took water aerobics, Benjamin!”

She noted with triumph that the tips of his ears glowed pink.

He’d spent a summer working at the elderly home and had moved through all the electives-- including water aerobics, something Rey took no small pleasure in teasing him about.

Rey’s smirk vanished when she saw him grab her phone from beneath her coverup on the Adirondack chair.

It wasn’t anything fancy, earned from her job at the hardware store, but she treasured it. She used it to communicate with her small but tight-knit group of friends-- her only connection, outside of school.

“Ben! Hey! Give it back!”

“Hmm, I don’t think I will,” he said, casually waking the screen to peruse its contents.

At this point, Rey was splashing her way through the water, walk-swimming to the stairs at the edge of the pool. Hauling herself up, she made a beeline towards him.

Not even bothering to towel off, she reached to snatch the phone from his hands.

“Uh uh uh,” he chided, moving the phone above her head. He was infuriatingly tall-- he had just gotten his final growth spurt recently, and now stood a head taller than even Han.

Rey growled and lunged for the phone, prompting a loud laugh in response to her tenacity.

“What do we say Rey?” he mocked in a baby voice.

“Give. Me. My. Damn. Phone. Back!!”

“Oh, she cusses! Where did you learn that? From one of your friends on here? Better take a look.”

Grinning, he held the phone high over his head and began swiping through her conversations.

Infuriated, Rey threw her body at him like a koala bear, seeking to knock him off balance.

He stumbled but caught her, and with her face smushed against his chest, she froze.

Ben was huge. Built like a tank and tall as an oak tree, she’d always been aware of his size. But this was different.

Suddenly she was self-conscious, couldn’t extricate herself fast enough.

She felt her face burn red. What was she doing? She wasn’t four and getting piggyback rides anymore.

Staring hard into the concrete, she forced words out.

“I’m sorry. May I have my phone back, please?”

She looked up timidly to see Ben scratching his neck, obviously picking up on the awkwardness of the situation. Rey grew even more embarrassed.

“No, Rey, it’s fine. Really. I was being a jackass anyway.”

She chucked. “Yeah, you were.”

He looked around for a few moments and cleared his throat.

“So, uh, you wanna get some of my mom’s lemonade?”

Rey grinned. She’d have a thousand glasses of lemonade with her favorite person to talk to in the world.

******

_**Present day** _

Rey pulls into Cantaka gas station and unbuckles with a sigh. More money for gas, money she could barely spare as it was.

She shuddered to think of the medical bills.

The smell of gasoline reminded her of painful memories, years before.

******

_**8 years ago.** _

Sticks crackled and shot as the huge bonfire raged.

Rey swayed back and forth, cheap beer clouding her vision and making her senses numb.

Rose sidled up and slid an arm around her waist.

“Doing ok, pal? That’s like your 4th drink. I’m only on…. well…” Rose began counting on her fingers, racking her brain. After a few moments of this, she gave up and snorted, giggling.

“Who knows! I’m f-f-fucked up!”

Both girls devolved into hysteria.

******

Elsewhere in the forest, Ben tipped a bottle of brown liquor back, relishing the sweet burn of its contents.

Phas was propping up an extremely buzzed Armie, who kept trying to sing songs from his boarding school days.

Suddenly the bottle was ripped from his grasp. He looked down into the eyes of Bazine, her girlfriend Kaydel in tow.

“Thanks, man,” she offered, taking a shot and passing it to Kaydel.

“Isn’t it fucking crazy that this is our last summer? We have to be, like, real adults next year” Kaydel said with a hiccup, wiping her mouth.

“Yeah! That _is_ pretty fuckin’ sad. Especially when you don’t have a hotshot job lined up with Snoke Engineering Corps,” muttered Hux in a voice likely louder than he intended.

Ben rolled his eyes. “Not like you aren’t going to one of the top med schools in the country, Armitage.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have mommy’s money to back me up.”

Ben was about to retort when he heard a loud groan of pain from a little farther into the forest.

Curious, he turned towards the sound.

“And that’s what you get for trying to take advantage of drunk girls, you CREEP!”

Another grunt.

Ben froze.

 _Was that? No. It couldn’t be._ This party was for college kids, his age, his graduating class plus a few accompanying stragglers.

 _Certainly not_ … he thought, pushing through the brush.

But there she stood, foot on the chest of a man twice her size.

Rey Jackson.

Ben allowed himself a moment to gape before striding over to her and wrestling her off of the prone man’s body.

She fought instinctually, scratching and biting like a pissed-off cat.

“Rey. Rey. It’s me!”

She stopped and looked up at him, guilt in her eyes.

Good, she should be guilty, the little rat.

“Rey. What the _fuck_ are you doing at this party? You know it’s not safe for you. What would Maz say?”

Rey’s blurry conscience sparked with fury. She _hated_ being talked down to, especially by Ben.

“Shut up! I’m not… a kid! You can’t tell me what to do!”

In Rey’s brain, these words came out confident and self-assured.

Ben heard a garbled mix of proclamations along the lines of “Ssss—-stop you don’t… what to do!”

He realized with a frisson of horror that she was drunk. And not just drunk, laid-down, knock-out drag-out drunk.

He had no idea how he would explain how he let a girl who was practically his sister drink alcohol at a party he and his friends hosted.

His hands on her upper arms tightened, half grounding himself and half trying to keep her from blacking out.

“Listen, I’m taking you to Maz’s,” he said, meeting her eyes as best he could.

“Mmm dontwanna… madatme,” she mumbled, dragging a hand across her face.

Ben might think it was kind of adorable if he weren’t livid.

Tamping down his anger, he took her hand and began guiding her out of the forest.

Rose, who was (slightly) less intoxicated, stumbled along behind them.

When they reached Ben’s car, it was evident that Rey had come to a decision about Ben’s treatment of her, and, in a clearer voice that belied her affectedness, began to argue her case.

“I’m- 16! Ben. I’m 16! I’m not a baby anymore, you don’t have to take care of me. I would never interfere with you and your...friends.”

This last ended on a note of bitterness Ben couldn’t help but observe.

“Rey, you know you’re not supposed to be out here— college kids only. And I’m responsible for you, especially here. You’re like my kid sister. I owe it to Maz to make sure you don’t go getting shitfaced in the middle of the woods.”

Rey’s face crumpled infinitesimally.

“I can take care of myself.”

Ben thought back to the man on the forest floor.

“I know you can, okay? Let’s just get you two back home.”

Rose, whose head had been pressed to the side of the car, groaned in agreement.

Ben unlocked the car and offered her a hand inside the backseat. When he turned to Rey, she slapped his hand away. He hid a small smile.

_Always tough. Since the beginning._

******

As Rey sped through landscapes of corn and wind turbines, she noted the sign— 200 miles to Pembra.

She pushed down the feeling of panic and turned on the radio.

A familiar pop song drifted through the speakers.

******

_**3 years ago** _

Rey called a greeting to yet another newcomer— she was heading up the stairs to change her shoes.

The heels had gone well with her cap and gown, but now her feet begged for relief. Unbuckling her wedges, she reached for a pair of flats and sighed at the instant relief.

Skipping down the stairs, she almost missed the front door opening.

“Hello? Did someone happen to graduate at this house?” called a teasing voice.

Rey rushed towards the door.

There stood Leia and Han, arms full of gifts.

Rey ran to kiss them both on the cheek, grinning from ear to ear.

“Goodness you’ve brought quite the arrangement. You’ll make my other guests insecure,” she teased, watching as Han’s eyes lit up.

“That’s the point,” he intoned in his growly voice Rey loved so much.

It made her think of... _no_

She realized suddenly that Ben wasn’t with them.

She wasn’t sure why she expected that, but still, it panged her.

As if reading her mind, Leia turned from setting down the plethora of gifts to smile sadly.

“Ben couldn’t be here, you know he would, he just…” she paused to brush her hand up to her sunglasses, “That new job of his… it’s demanding.”

From the way Han’s body tensed, she could tell it was a sore subject.

She bit her tongue and guided them into the party, where they immediately began socializing.

Rose and Jannah held up a bottle of champagne and gestured towards the backdoor.

“Treehouse?” Jannah mouthed. Rose offered a little wave of her hands.

Rey lifted a thumb in response.

She cleaned up a few pieces of trash, watching from the kitchen as the girls ran down towards the old treehouse, giggling and hollering.

Just as she was washing up, she heard Leia call her name.

“Dear! Come over here, I’ve had the most wonderful idea.”

Rey turned, drying her hands as she went.

She located Leia by the food table— Han was currently monopolizing the cheese plate. Leia held her phone to her ear, one finger in the opposite ear to block out her noise of the party.

Rey looked at her, puzzled.

“Hello, Ben! I know you were so sad not to make it to Rey’s party, and I just figured I would remedy the situation. Rey’s right here, and you two can talk this way!”

Leia began extending the phone towards her and Rey froze. Her carefree demeanor shifted into one of stomach knotting anxiety.

“I- Leia— she stopped. What was her excuse? Sure, they hadn’t had a real conversation since that day when she was 16.

She’d childishly avoided him from that night forward, always waiting for him to leave a room before she entered.

He spent several hours trying to coax her out of her room, but by the end of the summer he was resigned.

He left to go back to college without a word to her, and she hadn’t seen him since.

But surely she could manage a phone conversation, right? This was once her favorite person in the entire world.

Taking a steadying breath, she took the phone cautiously, as if it might bite her.

“H—hello?”

“Rey.”

It wasn’t a question. He almost sounded _relieved_.

“How are you?”

“How are you?”

An amused silence stretched where they had spoken over each other.

“You first.” His soft, deep voice offered, not unkindly.

“I’m… I’m good. A real adult now, I guess.”

Ben chuckled.

“Yes. What are your plans?”

“Oh, I’m not sure, my friends and I are going to travel some. After that, we’ll see.”

“Great. That’s great Rey.” He sounded genuinely happy for her.

A pause. His breathing got heavier, less even.

“Rey— just. Be safe okay?”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

Still the same overprotective brother-type.

“Yes Ben, I will be careful,” she said, with as little sass as could be mustered.

“Good. I have to go now, would you hand me back?”

She returned the phone to Leia.

“Already?” Leia’s face contorted into an expression of… disappointment?

As Rey headed down the steps of her back porch, she realized he’d never said how he was doing.

******

_**Present day** _

Rey saw the signs for Qella and exhaled.

Home soon.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, kudos and comment please :) Subscribe for more :)


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